


Untold Feelings, Petals in the Wind

by SofaKills



Category: One Piece
Genre: Language of Flowers, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 15:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12914433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofaKills/pseuds/SofaKills
Summary: Lucci struggles with his feelings for Paulie, made manifest in the form of flowers.





	Untold Feelings, Petals in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the hanahaki trope, in which someone starts coughing flowers due to having unrequited feelings for another person.

It started with an itch in his throat.  
  
The most he thought of it was that it was an annoyance, getting in the way of using his voice to its full capacity. But then again, it was also easily dealt with, as long as he didn’t strain his throat too much.  
  
If that itch seemed to get worse in the few moments throughout the day that he spoke with Paulie, he didn’t notice.  
  
\----  
  
The arrangement between them was simple: They would fuck, rid themselves of tension and some measure of stress, and then return to their respective routines.  
  
It was a good one, in Lucci’s eyes. It gave him some access to information about Paulie as a person. Things like how his habits shaped his home, what sorts of things he left in the open, what sorts of things were kept secret. Nothing substantial enough to help Lucci in his search for leads, but enough to find threads to pull.  
  
He now knew what brand of cigars Paulie smoked, how he organized his letters, what kinds of alcohol he stocked in his fridge alongside barely passable cheese and day-old lunchboxes. He knew how warm Paulie’s hands were, and how smothering he could be when sufficiently drunk.  
  
But, no matter how much he knew, their arrangement wouldn’t change. It was for the best, really.  
  
And still, despite that, the itch in his throat wouldn’t go away.  
  
\----  
  
It was early morning when he woke up coughing, disturbing the silence of dawn with gasped breaths and half-curses as he felt something stick to the roof of his mouth and tongue.  
  
Lucci covered his mouth with his hand, ignoring the distressed cooing from Hattori as the pigeon moved from his perch to his master’s shoulder. Whatever it was that he’d coughed up, it certainly left his throat feeling raw.  
  
But, once he could breathe again, he lowered his hand to find red littering his palm.  
  
It wasn’t blood.  
  
The red blotches that lay in his palm were petals. Rose petals.  
  
“... _I don’t have time for this_.” he growled, brushing the petals into the closest trash bin before moving to get up. That first morning cup was bound to wash away whatever was still tickling his throat, for sure.   
  
For all the things Lucci was, a cold-blooded killer, merciless actor, and bloodthirsty predator all rolled into a single being, he was not one to dwell on simple things like love. It was beyond his field of work, unattainable.  
  
Much like Paulie.  
  
And even so, even with years of walking down the same blood-drenched path, he was falling. Deeply, deeply, he couldn’t stop himself.  
  
The petals foretold it. Or, perhaps they were simply a confirmation of what he already knew, yet couldn’t wholly believe.  
  
\----  
  
The itch quickly turned into short-lived fits, scratching his throat and making it increasingly more difficult to keep up his charade of ventriloquist-fueled schemes to avoid talking directly to people.  
  
Petals would clog his mouth if he wasn’t careful, but it was at least manageable.  
  
As far as those around him knew, he was just coming down with a cough.  
  
It would wear off during his trysts with Paulie, almost letting him breathe freely as he let his teeth - fangs, hidden beneath a veneer of calm - sink into soft, sun-kissed skin.  
  
The hitch in Paulie’s breath was more than enough to spur him on, as was the feeling of the other man’s nails raking down his back.  
  
\----  
  
“Y’know, that’s the third time I hear you sound like you’re hacking up a lung today. You sure you’re okay, Lucci?” Paulie asked, sitting down on a haphazard stack of pallets to have his usual smoke break.  
  
Lucci took a second to clear his throat, spitting one last offending petal to the ground before he straightened up to look over to Paulie.   
  
“[Unlike a certain someone, Lucci doesn’t kill his lungs by smoking, so he will be just fine.]”  
  
“And what’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Paulie replied, his concern quickly fading away in favor of irritation.  
  
A glance to the ground told Lucci that he wasn’t just coughing up broken red roses, not anymore. Now, gardenia petals had joined them. Red and white, scattered over the ground. Dust would cover them quickly, leaving them forgotten in the wake of a ship’s construction.  
  
He chuckled mirthlessly, turning around to return to work.  
  
At the rate this was going, he might assemble a bouquet before it passed.  
  
\----  
  
When he started to cough up salvia petals, he began to notice something else accompanying the stinging pain in his throat and the taste of iron.  
  
His chest hurt, as if something had wrapped itself around his heart. Thorns came to mind, something like the whip that Kalifa favored.  
  
 _"I’ll have to get that bouquet after all, it seems."_  
  
Lucci shook his head, picking up the scattered petals from the floor to throw them away, just like he had been doing for the past few weeks.  
  
Brushing off his colleagues’ concern was a simple task, the difference in rank keeping them from truly pursuing the subject. Even so, they knew what the cause was. If he was to guess, he could say that they most likely knew who the cause was, too.  
  
Anything less would make them incompetent as agents.  
  
Though, despite that, he didn’t tell them a thing. His inner turmoil was, by the metric he measured his actions by, unimportant. As long as it didn’t interfere with their mission, it didn’t matter.  
  
Hell, he might even get some use out of the persistent coughing fits. Concern for his health might lead the other foremen to spill information that they could use, it might even cause Iceburg himself to meddle.  
  
\----  
  
Paulie’s presence had been a panacea for a time, but now, even that was gone. Medicine could turn into poison, it was bound to happen.  
  
But even so, Lucci couldn’t bring himself to speak of his love, despite how that very thing was torturing him. He knew that Paulie wouldn’t reciprocate, and he would be a fool if he tried to convince himself of anything different.  
  
Every second he spent around Paulie sent thorns scraping down his throat, the vines coiling around his heart tightening, twisting painfully. But still, he continued to play his role.  
  
There wasn’t much time left.  
  
\----  
  
The gardenia petals were no longer white. They were speckled with red, and wilting fast.  
  
The ache in his chest was slowly fading, but he knew that this wasn’t going to be the end of it.  
  
The flowers weren’t blooming, but there were still seeds left behind.  
  
They too, would sprout, and bloom.

 

_Perhaps he would wither alongside them._


End file.
